Gray Skies Over Big Bend

I used to sigh and put the camera away at the sight of heavy, gray clouds hanging over the landscape. The flat, dim lighting used to not inspire me photographically. But my approach to photographing in these conditions has changed in the past year and I think it has a lot to do with the realization of my photographic style.

Essentially, what I've realized is that the form of the land can be visually described with great clarity and impact. The landscape is distilled to its basic shapes and lines, i.e. it's core content. It's like looking at a pen and ink sketch instead of a color photograph.

Well, that's sorta obvious :-) No revelations there. But there are a couple of tricks that can help to make better such photos of dimly-lit landscapes with gray skies: 1) using the patterns and shapes that are present in the clouds, and 2) strong compositions. It is, however, a matter of taste and subject to your own personal photographic vision.

These type of photos usually convey a moody emotion - typically sadness, isolation, or deep calm. I get that too sometimes, but I also feel like I'm experiencing the raw landscape on a deep level. It's not colored by pretty light, and I prefer black and white to take away the typically muted and dull colors found in dim, diffused light (this isn't always the case; one example being the bright yellow and orange leaves of trees in the fall season, but this post is more about exposed landscapes that have little color in such lighting conditions).

Tornillo Creek near the Hot Springs, #1
(click for slightly larger pic)

Canon 5D with Canon 24-70mm f/2.8L
25mm, f/11, ISO 100, blend of 2 exposures: 1/50 & 1/20 sec.

On a recent trip to Big Bend National Park, one afternoon I experienced unusually heavy, gray clouds that blanketed the entire sky. This condition would have turned me off, photographically speaking, but I became very inspired because of the patterns in the clouds. I knew that I could work with those patterns and find strong forms and lines in the landscape to create photos that featured the essence of the land.

Tornillo Creek near the Hot Springs, #2
(click for slightly larger pic)

Canon 5D with Canon 24-70mm f/2.8L
27mm, f/11, ISO 100, blend of 2 exposures: 1/50 & 1/20 sec.

Whether you like them or not, again, is a matter of your personal taste. Nearly all photos of Big Bend are in color and a good many of them feature some sort of dramatic lighting condition.

I see a lot of photographers whose style focuses on the light, particularly golden, directional, and dramatic light. You've probably seen this style announced with a statement of their creed of "chasing", "following", "capturing", or "being led by" the light. There's nothing wrong with that, and I've done a lot of that in my own photography. I think nearly everyone is attracted to dramatic lighting conditions and finds them appealing and moving. At the very least, they are certainly eye-catching.

But I also think that amazing light can be very distracting from the true form of the landscape. The land is beautiful even when distilled down to its basic components of shape and line. If you take away the warm light, dramatic shadows, and eye-piercing colors, you are then left to focus entirely on (and enjoy) the core essence of the landscape. (Like when I tell my wife that she's just as beautiful without makeup on - but she never believes me.)

BTW, my portfolio of photos from this trip to Big Bend is now complete and online:
www.texbrick.com/photo/bb_sept_08

There is also an extended gallery that is a visual trip report:
www.texbrick.com/photo/bb_sept_08/all_pics.html

TuFuse Me? (easy HDR :-)

Earlier this year, a photo buddy of mine (Jeff Kohn) introduced me to TuFuse. It's a program that combines multiple exposures (from a high dynamic range, HDR, scene) into one image. TuFuse is shareware.

The basic interface of the program takes you back to the old days of DOS :-) To run it in Windows, you have to create a batch file that establishes the path to your files, calls up the program (with optional switches that adjust the processing options), and tells the program which image files to combine. It's fairly easy and straightforward once you've done a run.

TuFuse will accept 16-bit TIF files and produce a 16-bit TIF as output.

I finally got around to seriously using TuFuse and tackled some of my older, difficult images. First up was a 5 exposure scene shot last year.

click for larger pic

The above scene was shot with 5 exposures (all in RAW). The result, using nominal processing settings in the program, was fantastic.

I still ended up layering (with masks) some content from the original files over the TuFuse output in PS (Photoshop). Using layers and masks is my normal approach to combining multiple expsoures, and it's tedious and labor intensive. I've tried manually combining the exposures for the above scene about 6 times in the last year and never got a result that completely satisfied me.

For comparison, here's my original attempt at exposure blending - manual blending only (i.e. using only layers and masks in PS):

no clicky

With a scene like this (one that has a very bright source of light in a localized region in the scene) simple layering with masks is quite difficult. Imagine concentric rings of differing exposure around the point light source (the sun). This is further complicated by the mountain in the upper right - this mountain is one of the darkest parts of the scene and renders nearly black in simple layering because of its close proximity to the sun in the scene.

The beauty of TuFuse is that it handles these areas of difficult exposure transition well. And then you can layer in bits of the original files into the "easy" areas of the scene (not that the TuFuse output is bad, but the original pixels just seem like a better choice to me where possible).

Since I was pleased with the TuFuse results, I also tried the sister scene to this shot, one that I'd not processed before:

click for larger pic

This was another 5 exposure blend done in TuFuse, and then supplimented by bits of the original files in PS (i.e. layering in, using masks, some of the original files over the TuFuse output in PS).

------------------------------------------

To reiterate what I've said before, shooting wide dynamic range scenes (i.e. scenes that contain a dynamic range greater than what the camera can capture in one shot) is quite difficult, and there are different approaches to doing it. Each approach has its pros and cons.

I prefer not to use graduated neutral density filters (the traditional method of shooting such scenes) because it's a one-size-fits-all approach that isn't always well suited. Take the above scenes for example. A graduated ND would have made the upper right-hand mountain very dark (much like my original efforts in blending the scene manually). There is no ND filter made that has a ND spot to handle scenes like this, and if such filter was made, the size and ND strength of the spot would have to be just right.

HDR programs (like Adobe HDR and PhotoMatix) have not worked well for me in the past. In fact, my first attempt at blending this scene was done in Adobe HDR. I spent long hours with it trying to fine-tune the processing and output with only poor results.

Manual blending (using layers and masks in PS), when done with care and skill, seems to produce superior results. The con is that it requires a lot of processing work. But I feel that the results are the best that can be achieved and also make the most and best use of digital post-processing (or, digital darkroom, if you like). Using TuFuse definitely helps to handle those tricky areas, like the upper right hand corner of the scenes above.

Finding Your Photographic Style

For a long while I chewed on the notion of photographic style. I was not able to define it in my work. Yes, there was an apparent style, or rather, just a few basic similarities between each of my photos. But that didn't satisfy me as I thought style would be something much deeper and more meaningful.

Earlier this year, with a little help from a photo workshop, I figured it out. I decided to write a piece on it since the whole process was complicated and deeply emotional for me.

Click here to read the article.

I hope that by sharing my experiences I can inspire those of you searching for your style and meaning in your work. Maybe you’ve found your style but it seems somewhat superficial. Maybe you wish to move beyond just making pretty pictures and create work that is more meaningful to yourself and others.

Defining and knowing your style will help you connect better with your passion in your work, IMO. Knowing your style isn't necessary for creating meaningful work, but I think it helps. Good luck!

Death Valley, Feb. 2008

High Island & Low-Light Panning

The Houston Audubon Society owns four bird sanctuaries at High Island, Texas. In March and April each year, the rookery in the Smith Oaks section is a hoppin' place. The nesting areas are cram-packed with Great White Egrets, Roseate Spoonbills, Neotropic Cormorants, and other shore birds. There are frequent squabbles for space and the noise is incredible.

The trails and viewing platforms near the rookery are equally packed. They are infested with photographers, birders, and thick clouds of mosquitos. Finding enough room to shoot is difficult enough, then you have to worry about getting elbowed or knocked in the head by someone's lens. There's always a bit of tension in the air when groups of photographers attempt to co-exist with groups of birders :-)

Anyway, I've made four trips there in the past two years to photograph the birds. I'm just now wrapping up processing my photos from this year.

click for slightly larger pic

Canon 40D, 400mm f/5.6L
f/5.6, 1/250 sec., ISO 400

I've shot different types of bird scenes at High Island, but the ones I like best (and the ones I've strived to get) take a different approch from the normal shots that photographers usually capture here.

When the light gets dim and the nesting area falls into shadow, almost all photographers and birders leave. The mosquitos get thick and the alligators float like dreadnoughts in the waters below.

click for slightly larger pic

Canon 40D, 400mm f/5.6L
f/5.6, 1/200 sec., ISO 400

I like to shoot in-flight shots in relatively low light (and slow shutter speeds). The subdued colors in the quiet light are quite nice. What I'm really after is getting a little wing blur to imply motion.

The resulting photos have a dream-like quality and offer a different view of High Island from the literal direct-light bird-book type photos usually taken here by others.

click for slightly larger pic

Canon 40D, 400mm f/5.6L
f/5.6, 1/250 sec., ISO 400

Using the Canon 400mm f/5.6 lens is well suited for this type of shooting. The lens is relatively small and light, and it's easier to pan along with the birds when shooting.

The slower maximum aperture (f/5.6) is acceptible because it results in slower shutter speeds (required to get wing blur) and also a little more DOF. Shooting in-flight shots like this is hit-or-miss (mostly near-miss) and the added DOF helps to get the bird's head in acceptable focus even if the focus point is a little off.

In a typical bird-book type shot, the 400mm f/5.6 does not produce beautiful, completely blurred backgrounds like a 500 or 600m f/4 lens will. So, this style of shooting (low-light panning) helps to blur the background more due to motion.

New Article: Behind the Scenes #1

Here's a new article that takes a detailed look at the behind the scenes events from one of my best and favorite photographs. This kicks off a new series of articles that will follow the same format for different photos of mine.

This article is intended to provide interesting infomation about the creation of the photograph. But it's mainly intended to capture some lessons learned from the experience and to help me remember the experience. Hopefully it will help others too.

www.texbrick.com/photo/notes/photo_story_01.pdf

BTW, I've added a new section of notes and articles on photograph on my website. There are currently three, and I plan on writing many more this year. Stay tuned!

www.texbrick.com/photo/notes

New Article: Photo Mindset (Getting Your Head in the Game)

I've published a new photography article about having a mindset conducive to good photography while out in the field. This is a non-technical piece that describes things you can do, based on my experience, to get your mind going in the right direction and get the creative juices flowing. Ever heard the expression having your head in the game?

For me personally, my photographic efforts have suffered from stress, anxiety, and different distractions while out shooting in the field. Over the years, I've come to realize a few things, and I've developed some techniques that help to get my head in the game. What I'm essentially getting at are methods that calm my mind down and really develop and focus my creative energy on photographing the environment around me.

Hope this helps you too! Check it out: www.texbrick.com/photo/notes/photo_mindset.pdf

Combining Exposures to Handle High Dynamic Range - Part 1

This is my first photography article, and will start a series on how to handle scenes having a wide or high dynamic range (higher than the camera (digital or film) is capable of recording). The method presented in this article shows a quick "down-n-dirty" way of combining two exposures. There are other, more sophisticated methods of combining exposures, and I'll publish articles later on that cover some of them.

www.texbrick.com/photo/notes/manual_HDR.pdf

There are advantages and disadvantages to this method. This article does not go into great detail about all the fine points, but rather is meant to provide a quick and easy means of combining two exposures using tools we already have.